Great Use Of Social Media Marketing In Singapore

Well-executed social media marketing campaigns can help your company acquire a highly involved and engaged audience, and this is especially significant in Singapore, where "brands risk being sidelined if they don't engage consumers in social media". Of course, all this is easier said than done, but there are plenty of brands which have embarked on social media marketing projects in Singapore with great results. In this post we will look at 4 great examples and the important lessons we can extract from them.

1) Locate Your Inner Funnyman

In January 2011, Burger King launched their "Never Chicken Out" campaign to empower Singaporeans to stand up for what they want.

Spoof videos based on this theme were uploaded onto BK's Youtube account and users, inspired by the videos, were encouraged to share their own "Never Chicken Out" experiences through their Facebook page. According to Philip Ho, Head of Marketing of Burger King Singapore, the tagline was a play on the double meaning of their new campaign tagline, 'With The King, You'll Never Chicken Out!", as well as a way to reinforce their brand promise, "Have It Your Way". Nifty.

The campaign was a hit, and it's no surprise why. The videos, with their unique Singaporean spin, are relatable to the average Singaporean and our innermost desires to commit carnage on the inconsiderate strangers who make life difficult for us. Commuters who monopolise the pole on the MRT train, are one example.

The best take-away lesson from Chicken's escapades? If you want your prospect to do something for you – be it click on your link or share your video, make it more compelling for him/her to do so. Rewarding them by brightening up their day with an unexpected giggle is a pretty foolproof way to do that. Your customers will love you for it. And if it's entertaining, it just gives them even more impetus to share your site with their friends.

2) Show Your Customers You Hear Them

According to Millward Brown, Singapore retail chains such as Sogurt rank alongside famous international labels such as Gucci and Adidas as the most recognisable brand, thanks to their effective two-way engagement with customers on their social networks. An impressive feat considering Sogurt just celebrated their 1st birthday in May.

Sogurt's Facebook page isn't there for the sake of being a bulletin board for disseminating information. Instead, Sogurt's owners know who their target audience are – Singaporean teenagers who are constantly posting and sharing content and opinions on social networks. By actively monitoring their Facebook page and swiftly responding to comments and questions posted by its fans, Sogurt is effectively targeting itself to that customer base.

More importantly, by making the effort to respond to even the mundane of posts – "hi Sogurt how you doing" – Sogurt is marketing itself as being friendly, approachable, and customer-oriented. Brands who wish to follow in Sogurt's footsteps will find social media an excellent medium for this purpose.

3) Reward Your Customers For Their Loyalty

Apart from the usual updates about events and promotions, Brewerkz goes the extra mile to reach out to its customers through its social networks by offering free beer and vouchers to the first few fans to like a page, or to retweet a post.

Everyone loves freebies. Beyond that, however, Brewerkz is showing that it appreciates its fans, and the cost of offering free pints to their customers is more than made up by what they earn in goodwill from satisfied fans. Besides being a good way to build brand loyalty, new customers who joined in on the fun to get some free beer may also end up becoming converts if Brewerkz beer proves to be good.

4) Don't Isolate Social Media

Social media is most effective when used alongside your other, pre-existing marketing efforts, rather than as a separate entity. The roaring success of Ben & Jerry's 2011 Free Cone Day is testimony to this.

To promote their new Clusterfluff flavor, Ben & Jerry's encouraged their fans to send requests via a specially made Facebook app for the much-loved Cowmobile to make a stopover at their location to give out free scoops of Clusterfluff. This took place over a period of 5 days, during which 784 requests were made and the amount of Facebook Likes for B&J increased by more than 28%.

Social media played a big role in the success of this campaign, but Ben & Jerry's had also incorporated other, more traditional forms of communication channels such as face-to-face interaction (travelling around to pass out ice cream at personalised locations) and the use of a quirky, distinctive and attention-grabbing advertising medium (the Cowmobile) to form a well-rounded strategy. We bet there were plenty of passers-by who hadn't heard of the promotion via the relevant social media channels and it's likely that their interest were piqued after spotting the Cowmobile driving around the streets, or seeing ice cream being given out at the various venues.

Do you know of any other examples of great social media usage by brands in Singapore? Do share them with us! 🙂